


Tea Days

by existentialspace



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Himbo Zuko, Kinda sad ngl :(, Post Aang death, Regret, Tea, baby korra, mentions of sokka/suki, old!Katara, old!Zuko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25523374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/existentialspace/pseuds/existentialspace
Summary: Drabble written for Zutara Week 2020Day 1: Reunion-A fifty year long tradition binds Zuko and Katara’s friendship past the hardships both face. At one meeting, feelings and memories resurface.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Tea Days

It was a fifty year long tradition. 

It had started in their early twenties-- Katara, exhausted from the ordeal of rebuilding the Southern Water Tribe and raising three kids at the same time, had showed up at the Fire Nation Palace after unceremoniously dumping the kids on Sokka and Suki’s doorstep (Aang had a meeting with the Earth King) and shouting something about bonding with their niece and nephews. Zuko had seen her coming, of course, Appa flew in so often that they had a special landing pad and stacks of hay waiting for him in the garden. 

Zuko was waiting at the bottom of the steps, and his usually stoic face cracked into a grin as soon as he saw who was leaping off of the bison’s back. It was the smile the staff thought he usually reserved for his wife and young daughter, so there were some side glances among the guards as Katara took off running, catching the usually calm Fire Lord in a bone crushing hug and pulling him down to her height. 

“It’s been too long!” She said, finally releasing him and rolling her eyes as he mimed suffocating. “Oh, come off it. Your uncle hugs harder than that.” 

“You’re not wrong.” Zuko rolled his shoulders back, smiling at the thought of his uncle and the woman standing in front of him. “What are you doing here?” 

She chuckled weakly. “I’m exhausted. Kya… bless her heart… she’s been waterbending every time she sees something moist. I can’t give her drinks at mealtime anymore. Bumi’s being Bumi. And we’re holding the Winter Solstice festival for the first time in a hundred years at the South so I’ve been up almost every night planning…” She smiled up at Zuko. “So I figured I’d come see you. You must be exhausted too.”

It was true. Zuko hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since his coronation. Katara could clearly see the dark circles under his eyes, and her face reworked into one of concern, as if she didn’t have matching ones under hers.

“Well, what were you thinking of doing?” Zuko asked. “Considering I can get out of my duties, of course.”

“Well, you aren’t as good a tea maker as your uncle…” Zuko opened his mouth in protest, but Katara’s laugh (which sounded like bells), cut him off. 

“You said it yourself!”

“Fair enough.”

“The Jasmine Dragon’s too far to fly to, but you know your uncle’s recipes. We could have tea. Catch up. Sokka’s told me about your uncle’s invention… boba?” Zuko made a face. “Never mind then. You could just make us some Jasmine. I know it’s your favorite.” 

Zuko smiled at this nonchalant remembrance of something so silly as his favorite tea. Perhaps that’s why he said: “I’ll tell the guards to cancel my meetings. I think I know a place.”

Katara chuckled, and bowed overtly stiffly to him. “Of course, Fire Lord Zuko,” she said, trying to contain her laughter.

“Oh, come on!” 

He did know a place. There was a room overlooking the garden that was perfect. He boiled the tea as well as he could, shooed away the staff, and sat down with Katara, clumsily spilling the tea as he poured it into her cup. 

They talked for hours. About the growth of Republic City, their kids, and all of the silly things Sokka was doing as a councilman. The talk turned to nostalgia in the afternoon, and they reminisced bout their encounter with the Southern Raiders and how far they’d come since then. When Katara left that night, the two felt a lot better than they had before. 

And suddenly a lifelong tradition was born. Every month, Katara and Zuko had a tea day. Most of the time it was in that tiny room overlooking the Fire Nation Palace garden, but sometimes it was on Air Temple Island or in the Jasmine Dragon itself. It was a time just for the two of them, and it could last anywhere from an hour to an entire day. It persisted through the years, despite some strains that the two would go through, and they almost never ran out of things to talk about. It lasted through Suki’s tragic passing at the North Pole and Iroh’s leave for the Spirit World. Through Yakone and Azula’s death (which almost put a stop to them altogether). It withheld Aang’s death. It was only after Sokka passed that Katara began to make excuses, and the meeting’s ceased. The two thought their afternoons of drinking Jasmine tea in the Royal Palace were done.

But then Toph left Republic City. 

They didn’t know why this caused a shift. They knew Toph was fine of course: she was the one out of them who was most able to take care of herself. Wherever she was, she was fine. 

But they were the only two left of the original Team Avatar whose whereabouts were known. Katara felt herself looking northward more and more as she taught the new Avatar waterbending. 

Zuko was wandering the palace gardens, like he usually did on sunny days. For some reason, he had an overabundance amount of time nowadays. Being Fire Lord was easier than it used to be. But he didn’t mind, it allowed him to think a lot more than he had time for the past, and often his thoughts would wind to Katara. To them as teenagers at the Western Air Temple. About how if she had said something-- if either had said what they were both thinking how different things could have been. 

He sat down by the pond, reaching out an aged hand to pet the turtleduck, when he heard a loud  _ THWUMP  _ behind him.

In a flash, he was up, blasting fire like a crazed hog monkey, when a voice said “HEY.”

His hands dropped to his side. “Katara?” he said, embarrassed. “Are you alright?”

Out of the smoke crawled a flying bison. Not Appa, but its rider was the same. 

Katara slid off its back with surprising ease for her age. Zuko smiled that same smile from fifty years ago. The same smile from even longer ago: a beach at sunrise. The smile from when she’d looked him in the eyes and said she’d forgive him. When she’d hugged him, and he held the whole world in his arms for a few seconds before she let go and Aang was standing there and the reality had set back in. 

“Hey,” she said. 

They both knew what the other was thinking before they even said it. They went back into that same room overlooking the garden and Zuko boiled the tea. 

They didn’t talk for a while this time. They just sat, drinking their Jasmine and enjoying each other’s company.

Finally, Zuko coughed, shifting his gaze over to her. His breath caught on how much she had changed in a few short years. Her hair was streaked with gray now; but it shone like starlight in the limited sun. But still held herself with dignity. She still hummed absentmindedly as she gazed out the window. Maybe things hadn’t changed as much as he thought. Maybe he was still seventeen, wilting as she touched his scar in the crystal cave. 

“How’s Korra’s training going?” He said suddenly, the words falling out of his mouth.

Katara chuckled. “Good. It’s so strange, Aang was so hesitant to ever go on the offense and Korra… she’s only eight and she could probably take me down. We have to focus on the calmer parts of waterbending. Had to change up my whole teaching style.” 

The two of them laughed.

“Do you think you’ll come down to the South Pole to teach her firebending?” 

“Me?” Zuko’s eyes widened and he turned to her again to see if she was joking. 

“I’m serious. You’re the best firebending master alive. You should be the one to teach Korra.” 

Zuko set his cup down. “I don’t know, Katara. I’m not that good a teacher. Aang…”

“Aang learned everything he knew from you.” 

The air became heavy at the mention of his name. They sat side by side, drinking until their cups were empty. Then, they still sat, each of them waiting for the other to say something. 

Finally, Katara spoke. 

“Zuko, we were so  _ stupid _ .”

This took the Fire Lord by surprise. “What?” He said, in a voice that sounded so much like the seventeen year old in Katara’s memories. 

“You know what I’m talking about.” 

No, he didn’t actually. Was she talking about that moment after she had pulled apart all of the electricity in his chest like cotton, saving his life? That moment when she had helped him sit up and he had seen the tears falling from her eyes and he had tentatively wiped them off, telling her not to cry over him? When she had caught his hand in hers and said she couldn’t stand it if he died? When they had stared into each other’s eyes a little longer than necessary, and he’d wondered what would happen if he kissed her?

“I don’t.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I forgot how dense you are.” 

“You…”

“Zuko, I loved you.”

Wow.

How was he supposed to respond to  _ that _ ?

“Katara…” a part of him didn’t want to hear it. Hear how things could’ve been different if one word had been said. Her name was almost a plea. To let unsaid words go unsaid and let things be the way they were.

She looked him in the eyes, swirling oceans, and barreled on.

“I loved Aang. I did. But we were so  _ young _ … I was the first girl he ever saw after a hundred years… the first person! I think a part of me felt boxed in. He was the Avatar, for God’s sake. It was fate. It was like the universe had planned everything out.” She spoke fast, like she had been holding all of it in for fifty years. Like she was a bomb and she’s explode if she kept it inside. “Everyone expected it.  _ I  _ expected it. But what I felt for Aang…” She blinked. It said what her words couldn’t. 

If everything else about Katara changed, her eyes never would. They were blue. Blue that cut through the gathering clouds outside. Blue that held the world. Still and deep. “It wasn’t at all like what I felt for you.” 

They stared at each other. How could Zuko say that that was exactly how he felt too. Not for Aang, of course. But for her.

“Um…” was all that came out of his mouth. 

She shook her head in exasperation. He coughed. 

“Katara.” 

“Yes?”

“I never… I never said anything. But I… I felt so much for you.”

Thunder rolled outside the window. Rain began to fall on the grass.

Katara smiled weakly, deep in thought. Her face radiated a kind of sadness and nostalgia that Zuko recognized from other tea days. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if there was anything he could say at all. 

Slowly, definitively, Katara reached across the table and took his hand. Then, it struck him how beautiful she was. How beautiful she had always been. 

“I missed you, Katara.” 

“I missed you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and Happy Zutara Week!


End file.
